COVID Coping Strategies

[Mellsblue]

Morning all. Despite our detailed and forensic breakdown of COVID-19 over on the politics board we are not covering the important social element of this crisis. What are we doing to alleviate the boredom of self-isolation and social distancing? How are we coping with the realities that over night you are your kids’ teacher?
So, I’ll start:
The Mellsblue School for the Handsome and Gifted has a strict timetable. The morning is covered by the kids’ school but the afternoon I am on my own. The afternoon has me stealing resources from all over the place:
French - Muzzy online
Coding - MIT Scratch
Science - Royal Institution (website and YouTube channel)
Maths - Times Table Rock Stars
Architecture(!) - TinkerCAD
Georgraphy: National Geographic
I am also using bits and pieces that Yorkshire Carnegie and Sale Sharks are emailing to me. The RFU are also uploading stuff here:

https://www.englandrugby.com/news/artic ... ol-of-ruck



I have broken a life long rule of never exercising in the house, unless lifting weights. I am doing the School of Calisthenics daily sessions - live at 11am and then left on YouTube - and intermittently doing Jessica Ennis’s HIIT style workouts. I’ll admit the latter is mostly motivated by..... erm..... aesthetic reasons rather than the workouts themselves.

This evening I am partaking in a pub quiz via Zoom with school friends and WAGs. Entry to the quiz is only possibly if the male member of your team is sporting a moustache, in homage to fellow Bedford School old boy and slightly superior rugby player George Furbank, and each team member has at least one bottle of Corona. Slightly earlier the coach who teaches my youngest football (much to my disappointment) is hosting a football quiz for all his charges on Zoom.

How life has changed.

[Donny osmond]

Might look at those calisthenics, always been intrigued without ever actually looking them up

Sent from my CPH1951 using Tapatalk

[Galfon]

Zoom happy-hours et al: bad news, unless the stockpile remains healthy..

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.co ... index.html

[Which Tyler]

I spent the first week obsessing about the virus, and tracking the numbers; challenging misinformation etc etc. Which led me to fairly dark places for my mental health.
Since last weekend I've been limiting my news intake to one broadcast a day (rather than 24 hour rolling news); and am mostly scrolling straight past anything virus related I see on social media (except for dangerous claims I see - like shit quality sanitiser recipes; or the fraudulant (almost exclusively american) colleagues).

I have volunteered my help to the NHS - intially in my professional capacity; but as of yesterday, in any capacity they may be able to use me.
I'm sitting in front of the piano for an hour a day - for the first time in decades.
I'm attending a couple of online seminars each (week) day; and doing plenty of reading around at the weekend.
I've discovered that World Rugby are "live" streaming classic matches Fri, Sat and Sun evenings.
I'm getting out of the house to walk the dogs for 1-1.5 hours every day just so that I'm not staring at the same walls all the time (normal enough for me, but I've had to make it the same time every day to try and put some structure into my day).
I am actually getting in some (gentle) strength training pretty much every day - though this is "normal" for me in fits and starts.
I am speaking to someone outside of the household on the phone every day - alternating between a family member or a friend / colleague.

I am drinking more alcohol, and eating more cake than I ever have (since uni for alcohol, ever for cake - as Ali has taken up baking, seemingly like everyone else - and I can't stand food waste). I need to address this.

I have helped Ali sort out the paint pots, brushes and rollers from the loft; and am not looking forward to what will be expected of me tomorrow.

[Stom]

I'll be honest, it's a bit of a struggle for me.

My wife and I both work from home. Usually, this would involve me getting the kids to nursery and then working from 9-12:30, when I collect them from nursery, get lunch, and then work again from 15:30-17:30. That's good for me in terms of work, and means my wife gets to work from 9:00-13:00, and 14:00-15:30.

Instead, I'm with the kids all morning, and she's with them all afternoon. But it's not quite working out like that, and my work is being squeezed into 2-2.5 hours.

I'm desperate for time away from the kids, who are struggling with the lack of nursery, my wife is stressed because she wants to spend more time sorting out her launch, plus she's frustrated about "the state of the house" and wants to do all the projects everyone else is talking about. The people who either don't have work or don't have kids!

On the plus side, my work in the kitchen is getting better.

I've perfected Italian cooking, I made the best ribs I've ever made the other day, I've done a couple of cakes, some breads, and found the cookie recipe for me. I've also perfected my soup/stock recipe, and experimented with other things.

I want to introduce a little more variety in the coming weeks, though, and the booze is running out, so need to stock up on gin, vermouth, etc.

Especially as the sun is out and screaming for a nice Americano!

Ooh, coffee, too. I want to get some more specialty coffees in and start making some really good coffee. Going to try and pick up a nice Costa Rican, and might try a Colombian or an Ethiopian, haven't decided yet.

[Puja]

I'll be honest, it's a bit of a struggle for me.

My wife and I both work from home. Usually, this would involve me getting the kids to nursery and then working from 9-12:30, when I collect them from nursery, get lunch, and then work again from 15:30-17:30. That's good for me in terms of work, and means my wife gets to work from 9:00-13:00, and 14:00-15:30.

Instead, I'm with the kids all morning, and she's with them all afternoon. But it's not quite working out like that, and my work is being squeezed into 2-2.5 hours.

I'm desperate for time away from the kids, who are struggling with the lack of nursery, my wife is stressed because she wants to spend more time sorting out her launch, plus she's frustrated about "the state of the house" and wants to do all the projects everyone else is talking about. The people who either don't have work or don't have kids!

I recognise this. We, in theory, have an ideal situation because I work and my wife doesn't and so my work are of the opinion that I can just work from home and produce the same volume as my wife can deal with the children. However, my wife has long running issues with her mental health - she copes fine when the children are in school and her responsibility is from 3.15pm till 6.30pm, but having them all day is wearing on her, especially with "the state of the house" and the social media pressure to be doing all the things with the children. So I'm reducing my hours to try and give her some breaks, which has got the fun response from my work of, "Thank you for letting us know about your situstion, we value our employees and will do what we can to help, by the way your productivity is down and you need to improve it."

Plus, as you said, the kids miss school. They're 4 and 6 and are ferociously clever, both far ahead of literacy and numeracy, so I'm not concerned about them falling behind, but they both need and misss the socialisation of being taught not to bite the other puppies. The school have been doing a phenomenal job with keeping contact and providing content for them, but it's not the same.

On the bright side, I stocked up with non-perishables and got a freezer in the garage last year on the basis that there could be supply-chain issues with a No-Deal Brexit. Felt somewhat sheepish when I did it, but it's been a godsend to have the supplies now.

Puja

[Numbers]

Well my coping strategy is going to work every day to needlessly put myself at risk, almost all my work can be done from home but my employer insists I come in, even though I said I would attend in the eventuality I need to be on site, fucking arseholes.

[Digby]

I've dug a grave in the garden (or perhaps trench is a nicer word)

The main idea of which is to fill with garden waste given the tips are closed and there's no notice as to when collection of garden waste bins might resume, and I do understand moving the crews onto ensuring domestic and recycling collections continue. But as I don't want to burn my garden waste, why create extra smoke to help anyone with a respiratory condition along being the thinking there, I need somewhere to put what is now a vast mound, and thus the trench.

But if my family continue to irk me I'm satisfied I have options now

[Puja]

Well my coping strategy is going to work every day to needlessly put myself at risk, almost all my work can be done from home but my employer insists I come in, even though I said I would attend in the eventuality I need to be on site, fucking arseholes.

Oof. What do you do for a living? My work stayed open far beyond where they should have, despite being able to operate from home, but they at least bowed to the full lockdown.

Puja

[Numbers]

Well my coping strategy is going to work every day to needlessly put myself at risk, almost all my work can be done from home but my employer insists I come in, even though I said I would attend in the eventuality I need to be on site, fucking arseholes.

Oof. What do you do for a living? My work stayed open far beyond where they should have, despite being able to operate from home, but they at least bowed to the full lockdown.

Puja

I.T. mate, so every man and his dog suddenly need laptops, I can do the vast majority of what needs to be done from home though.

[morepork]

Well my coping strategy is going to work every day to needlessly put myself at risk, almost all my work can be done from home but my employer insists I come in, even though I said I would attend in the eventuality I need to be on site, fucking arseholes.

Oof. What do you do for a living? My work stayed open far beyond where they should have, despite being able to operate from home, but they at least bowed to the full lockdown.

Puja

I.T. mate, so every man and his dog suddenly need laptops, I can do the vast majority of what needs to be done from home though.

Tell them you have a sore throat (and fuck off).

[Galfon]

...or even say yer missus has, that's an xtra week..
Mrs G went down with 3 of the main simpsons, albeit mildly so I had comply.Back in a few weeks but not entirely comfortable given ICU stats show that I sit bang in the majority grouping..
-Had to go compost for cuttings/loppings.
-Had to go self-clipping for barnet - choosing number 2 seemed apt, but strangely got more complements from old dears down the road.
-Bird-bath showing no ash/pollutant debris at all these days.
-Joggers on the pavement are becoming a bit of a problem - not surprised Paris moved 'em aside.

[Numbers]

Oof. What do you do for a living? My work stayed open far beyond where they should have, despite being able to operate from home, but they at least bowed to the full lockdown.

Puja

I.T. mate, so every man and his dog suddenly need laptops, I can do the vast majority of what needs to be done from home though.

Tell them you have a sore throat (and fuck off).

I did have to self isolate for 7 days as I had flu symptoms, the problem is that people need the work to be done and it is required, it just doesn't require me to be on-site all the time which is the issue I have with this.

[Buggaluggs]

My firm does civil engineering and is considered essential as we do water and waste utilities. We only have 18 emps and most can work from home. We have managers who still equate working from home with fully paid time off, but the reality is that it works. Our utilization rates are still good and on any given day only 3-4 people actually go to the office. For some folks, I think they do more at home than they do in the office.

Other than that I have fixed just about every thing that needs fixing in the house and I'm looking forward to planting season for the veg patch to keep me occupied!

[Mellsblue]

Lockdown affects us all in different ways:

[Stom]

I would love to see travel to work included in your paypacket up to a certain point. So 1h a day is paid.

It's something I've said to potential employers when talking contracts: If I'm expected to come into the office 4 days a week, I'm going to be wanting pay for the time away from the family. All of it. I wouldn't be making that journey otherwise.

There's a Hungarian punk song with lyrics: 8 hours working, 8 hours resting, 8 hours entertainment.

Nowadays it's more like 10 hours working, 4 hours getting to work, 6 hours resting, 4 hours entertainment...

[Numbers]

Lockdown affects us all in different ways:

That's brightened up my day, cheers.

[Which Tyler]

For anyone bored, plenty of education courses available for free here: https://www.futurelearn.com/courses?fil ... _courses=1

[Which Tyler]

I would love to see travel to work included in your paypacket up to a certain point. So 1h a day is paid.

It's something I've said to potential employers when talking contracts: If I'm expected to come into the office 4 days a week, I'm going to be wanting pay for the time away from the family. All of it. I wouldn't be making that journey otherwise.

There's a Hungarian punk song with lyrics: 8 hours working, 8 hours resting, 8 hours entertainment.

Nowadays it's more like 10 hours working, 4 hours getting to work, 6 hours resting, 4 hours entertainment...

Why is it where you choose to live, your employer's responsibility?

[Stom]

I would love to see travel to work included in your paypacket up to a certain point. So 1h a day is paid.

It's something I've said to potential employers when talking contracts: If I'm expected to come into the office 4 days a week, I'm going to be wanting pay for the time away from the family. All of it. I wouldn't be making that journey otherwise.

There's a Hungarian punk song with lyrics: 8 hours working, 8 hours resting, 8 hours entertainment.

Nowadays it's more like 10 hours working, 4 hours getting to work, 6 hours resting, 4 hours entertainment...

Why is it where you choose to live, your employer's responsibility?

Up to a maximum. So 1h a day, for instance.

[Galfon]

For those of us not pre-villaged to live in western parts where clear skies are normal, the pollution-lite skies delivered a stonking super-moon tonight (biggest of the year); combined wi' a brilliant Venus (brightest of planets and only one on show in night-sky this month), remindful of how natural order continues even when there's 120nm pieces of spherical sh!t causing absoloute mayhem in the here-now.

[morepork]

I got wankered last night and viewed this moon through a scope. The Tycho crater was immense.

[Banquo]

I got wankered last night and viewed this moon through a scope. The Tycho crater was immense.

There's a dark side to you...

[Banquo]

I would love to see travel to work included in your paypacket up to a certain point. So 1h a day is paid.

It's something I've said to potential employers when talking contracts: If I'm expected to come into the office 4 days a week, I'm going to be wanting pay for the time away from the family. All of it. I wouldn't be making that journey otherwise.

There's a Hungarian punk song with lyrics: 8 hours working, 8 hours resting, 8 hours entertainment.

Nowadays it's more like 10 hours working, 4 hours getting to work, 6 hours resting, 4 hours entertainment...

Why is it where you choose to live, your employer's responsibility?

well yes. Kind of assuming a seller's market. I suspect if an employer wants you enough, they'll make sure it works for you- if they don't, they won't.

[Mellsblue]

Episode 2 of Being In Lockdown Makes People Do The Silliest Things: